Contents

KayakFree
Travel search website Kayak.com is one of my favorite sites for finding the best deals on flights, especially when I'm picky about the details: what time to leave, number of layovers, and which airlines I can use. In its early days, Kayak only handled search (although it was one of the best at that end of the game), but now you can prepay for flights, hotel reservations, and even car rentals. Additionally, Kayak includes in its searches other aggregation services, like Orbitz and Priceline, to truly make sure you find the best deal.

Available on: Android, iOS, Kindle Fire, Windows Phone, Web

Maps.MeFree
The Maps.Me mobile app lets you browse around the globe, zoom in on any region or city, and download a detailed map of that area to use offline. You'll see an option to download just the map or the map with directions enabled to get you from point A to B without an Internet connection. What I like about Maps.Me is the great level of detail on maps for lesser traveled places, such as Freetown, Sierra Leone (shown), which isn't well mapped by Google Maps. It's a must-have travel app for those who wander off the beaten path.

Available on: Android, Amazon Fire, BlackBerry, iOS

MenuPagesFree
When on road trips, you can often find restaurants nearby using Google Maps or Yelp, but you can't always see how much the food costs or what's on the menu. MenuPages fills in those gaps, telling you whether a cup of coffee is going to run you a dollar or an arm and a leg. Even when menus are rotating, MenuPages gives you a sample menu from a previous day. It's a great travel tool, currently covering New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, South Florida, and Washington, D.C.

Available on: Android, iOS, Web

OpenTableFree
Snag a dinner reservation in less than a minute with the OpenTable app. OpenTable is pretty widely used in major cities in the U.S. and Canada, as well as in London. It lets you find restaurants that meet your criteria, see opening times, read reviews, and make reservations online at no charge. It's a great restaurant resource when you're in any city, but especially while traveling.

Orbitz Flights, Hotels, CarsFree
Orbitz Flights, Hotels, Cars searches for the best travel deals, lets you book them, and offers a price guarantee if another user books the same travel as you for less. Orbitz's app is the kind that anyone would want for planning a trip ahead of time to find low prices, as well as last-minute bookings from the road.

Available on: Android, iOS, Kindle Fire, Web

Packing Pro$2.99
Packing Pro is a mobile app made for list makers. It helps you remember what to pack and can also serve as evidence of what you packed if your luggage were ever lost. It has plenty of sample lists of items to pack for different types of travel, or you can create your own and tick off items as they go into your luggage. The $3 app may seem like overkill to those who have packing down to a science already, but it can be an excellent tool for parents who are packing for multiple family members before leaving on vacation.

Available on: iOS

RoadtrippersFree
Tell Roadtrippers your starting location and destination, dates of travel, and what kinds of things you're interested in finding along the way, and this app will plot your journey for you. Roadtrippers can find offbeat attractions, restaurants, museums, amusement parks, camp sites, and more. When you find a site you like, just add it to your trip, and Roadtrippers will redraw your travel map accordingly.

Available on: Android, iOS, Web

Roomer TravelFree
We all know we can save a good deal of money by booking hotels in advance. The problem, especially on road trips, is that we don't always get to the destination in time for the reservation, and if you've paid ahead, you're out of luck. Not so if you use Roomer. This app and website (roomertravel.com) helps travelers sell their prepaid reservations to people who can use them to recoup some of that otherwise lost cost. If you need a hotel in a pinch, you can also see if anyone on Roomer is trying to offload a hotel room in your desired location. Everyone wins.

Available on: Android, iOS, Web

SkyScannerSkyScanner's mobile app has such a Free
wonderful search interface for finding cheap flights. I love that you can look for a flight on certain dates from your home airport to anywhere in the world based on where it might be inexpensive to fly during that time. You can then adjust your search using a wonderfully intuitive and interactive graph to find the cheapest surrounding dates to travel. SkyScanner partners with a site called ebookers.com for the actual sale, and note that SkyScanner's prices appeared for me in U.S. dollars while ebookers' showed up in GBP. The company makes separate apps for hotel and car rentals.

Available on: Android, BlackBerry, iOS, Windows 8, Windows Phone, Web

TripAdvisorFree
TripAdvisor is one of the most best online sources for travelers, particularly because it has in-depth reviews of hotels, restaurants, and sites to see. Photos uploaded by other users are also helpful for getting a glimpse of a place from an unbiased point of view. TripAdvisor is one of the richest resources you'll find because it has a huge and active community.

Available on: Android, iOS, Nokia, Windows Phone, Web

TripCaseFree
TripCase is a free app that helps you organize your itineraries. You use the app by forwarding confirmation emails from travel services to a special address. TripCase then pulls the most important information from those confirmation emails and arranges them into a day-by-day or even hour-by-hour summary of your trip. It's very similar to the next app in this list (TripIt), except that TripIt pulls information directly from your email account while TripCase relies on you sending it along.

Available on: Android, iOS, Web

TripItFree
TripIt is a mobile app for Android and iPhone that connects to your email accounts and automatically compiles your travel information based on confirmation emails you receive. TripIt finds the important details for flights, hotels, rental car reservations, and even restaurant bookings, then collates them in order into an itinerary. If you worry about not having all your details in one place, TripIt is a wonderful travel organizer.

Available on: Android, BlackBerry, iOS, Windows Phone

TripomaticFree
Tripomatic helps you plan what to do and see on your next trip, and on which days. You can use it in advance of your trip to put together a daily agenda, or use it on the spot to find sites to see, a cafe to have coffee, or restaurant in which to eat. Tripomatic has more than thousands of attractions listed in hundreds of destinations. The app syncs with the website Tripomatic.com, so you can tinker with your itineraries on a full sized screen if you prefer. Many of the top destinations have offline content, such as maps, photos, and visitors guides.

Available: Android, iOS

TriposoFree
Driving through the desert or deep into mountains, you can't be sure you'll have Internet access. Triposo puts offline maps and travel guides onto your phone so you can use them even in dead zones. Before you download maps and guides for any destination, Triposo tells you how much space they will take up on your phone, too. When you pull up a destination on Triposo, it offers top sightseeing suggestions, a weather forecast, and more ways to explore the destination.

Available on: Android, iOS

TV Food MapsFree
A friend turned me onto TV Food Maps after she raved about its value on her last big U.S. road trip. This interactive app and website finds restaurants and eateries that have appeared on various television food shows, such as Bizarre Foods American, Top Chef, $40 a Day, Restaurant Impossible and (groan) Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives. What could be more American than eating your way through a road trip?

Available on: Android, iOS, Web

UberFree
Getting around a foreign city can be a royal pain, especially if you don't speak the language, don't have any currency, or don't know the etiquette rules for tipping or haggling. Uber eases all these pains and others. With this car service app, you can request a car and tell the driver where to pick you up by dropping a pin on a map. The app gives you a fare estimate for a ride to your destination, and the driver can see it on the map, too. When your ride is over, Uber charges your credit card the right amount, and you don't have to tip. Uber is worldwide, with service more than 50 countries.

Available on: Android, iOS, Web (mobile browser required)

ViatorFree
Looking to save some money but still do some interesting site-seeing? Viator shows you deals and discounts either nearby or in the place you're going to visit next--provided that location is in Viator's list of potential cities, regions, and countries. It's great for ideas of what to see and do, especially when you're feeling clueless, although the quantity and quality of the deals varies dramatically by place.

Available on: Android, iOS

WanderuFree
If you don't drive but want to take a road trip, try Wanderu. This app and website is a search aggregator and price comparison tool for bus and train tickets. Enter the dates you want to travel, plus your beginning and ending point, and Wanderu will look for fares on Amtrak, Greyhound, MegaBus, Bolt Bus, TrailwaysNY, BestBus, and other bus and train carriers.

Available on: Android, iOS, Web

WazeFree
Waze is a community-driven app for traffic and other information about the road, including police speed traps, potholes, and accidents. While Google Maps tells you about major reported road problems, Waze knows the nitty-gritty. You can even see the speeds at which cars are traveling in congestion. In cities, it's popular among taxi and car service drivers, but it's equally useful on highways. Beware, though: Waze needs to use your location information all the time, even in the background, which will take a toll on your battery.

Available on: Android, iOS, Windows Phone

YelpFree
The beauty of Yelp, an app that offers user-generated recommendations for businesses, is that it's used widely by a lot of people. If you show up at a destination and want to find a decent cup of coffee within walking distance, Yelp will probably do the best job. While some other travel apps have plenty of recommendations from other travelers, Yelp is more likely to be used by locals. It's especially good with restaurants, but Yelp can also help you find auto repair shops, health clinics, and other places you might need to visit unexpectedly while on a trip.

About the Author

Jill Duffy is a contributing editor, specializing in productivity apps, as well as health and fitness technology. She writes the weekly Get Organized column, with tips on keeping your digital life tidy and tidying up your real life using technology. She is the author of the book Get Organized: How to Clean Up Your Messy Digital Life and writes abou... See Full Bio

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